A-One Co. has forged solid relationship with local elevator companies

Originally published Saturday, May 16, 1998

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

The Jarnig family has a deep and iron-clad claim to their little plot of land in the Cascade/South Lake Union neighborhood:

Their A-One Ornamental Iron Works Co. shop has been there since 1938, when Grandpa Andrew Jarnig, an Austrian immigrant, started the business. And the third-generation business now is a major fabricator of specialty metal products for the elevator industry.

The shop used to be up the street about a block, but Grandpa bought this property and built the current shop in 1945. In 1969, he added a large section on the rear of the building, to house larger and more modern machinery. But negotiations to expand further collapsed when a land purchase deal failed, pretty much land-locking the metal shop into its current site.

"It's location, location, location!" said Shirley Jarnig, who's been running the front office since she married Andrew Jarnig Jr., son of the founder. "We serve the elevator industry, and where do you think all the elevators are?!" she asked rhetorically, swinging around in her office chair and pointing out the ornamental iron clad windows facing Seattle's downtown skyscrapers.

Which could be why Shirley and her son, Gordy, are and have been very vocal opponents of the Seattle Commons project that would have bulldozed most of the Cascade community, including their 7,200-square-foot shop.

Gordy, 48, who like his father began learning the trade when he was in high school, is president of the small company at 216 Ninth Ave. N., a stone's throw from Denny Park.

"My grandfather did a lot of ornamental iron work; we even have one of his forges left in the back . . . sorta saving it because it's an antique," he said.

"But my dad began shifting the business to elevators even before he took over from his dad, and today about 90 percent of our business is elevators."

Which to you and me means everything from those shiny stainless steel or bronze elevator doors, wall and ceiling panels, handrails, even the face plates around the elevator buttons. And a whole lot more heavy steel framework inside, below, atop and behind the scenes.

If the elevator in your building has been remodeled or upgraded recently, chances are that much of the new elevator began in this relatively small shop just a couple blocks south of Lake Union.

"We deal on a daily basis with every major elevator company in the area, which could mean as far as Spokane or Portland," said Gordy. "If any contractor around here needs something for an elevator job, they automatically tell their people: Go to A-One."

It's a pretty tight-knit union shop (Local No. 506, Iron Workers), run on a day-to-day basis by Ed Lundvall, a Ballardite who began working for Gordy's grandfather. Ed is gaffer for the half-dozen or so workers who bend, cut, punch, drill and weld everything from paper-thin stainless steel to three-quarter-inch steel -- "just about everything you see on an elevator and a whole lot you don't."

"Back when I started, everything was run from a main power shaft above, connected to all the machinery by leather drive belts," said the gray-haired Lundvall. "And let me tell you, it was sort of dangerous . . . no safety switches or operating guards, not like it is today. You had to be real careful when you handled heavy metal on a piece of machinery run like that."

In addition to the "fine" work of elevator door "skins" -- the metal panels placed over elevator car frameworks -- the A-One shop also does heavy metal truck bedliners and body parts.

In the tiny front office where Shirley handles all the bookwork, telephones and paperwork, one other staffer usually just sits around all day.

"This is Bee Bee," Shirley said, cuddling the very laid-back black cat that walked in one day and stayed. Bee Bee had been looking for a place to have a litter and just sort of adopted A-One as her family and home. "My mom never even liked cats!" Gordy said, watching his mother stroke Bee Bee as the cat lounged in her very own office chair.

Shirley claims she's semi-retired, but when she's not in the office, there's a good chance you'll see her driving one of the company trucks, picking up or delivering raw materials or finished metal parts.

"I've been driving truck since my husband and I were married in '48," she said matter-of-factly.

Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I.